Stanislaw Burzynski comments on new cancer science, hilarity ensues

It occurs to me that it’s been a while since I’ve written anything about Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski. Truth be told, I had been hoping not to write about him for a while, and I had been actually succeeding. The last time I took notice of him was about a month ago, when his propagandist Eric Merola whined about how Dr. Hidaeki Tsuda, the Japanese anesthesiologist who was featured in the second movie that Merola made about Burzynski, had seen his latest manuscript rapidly rejected by The Lancet Oncology. In Tsuda’s segment in the movie he claimed to have done a clinical trial showing that the addition of Burzynski’s antineoplastons to chemotherapy for metastatic colorectal cancer greatly improved survival. As I pointed out on multiple occasions, data talk, BS walk. Presenting the very barest outline of a clinical trial in a propaganda movie directed by an admirer whose work is so blatantly biased that it’s hard to take him seriously.

In any case, I was enjoying the lack of news about Burzynski and hoping that the next news I heard about him would involve his being shut down by the FDA or the Texas Medical Board acting to try to take his medical license away again. It didn’t, unfortunately. What I did see was a press release entitled Burzynski Clinic heralds tumor treatment breakthrough:

PHILADELPHIA, PA, September 05, 2013 /24-7PressRelease/ — The Burzynski Clinic is a leading cancer treatment center that focuses on using personalized targeted therapy to treat difficult types of cancer such as brain tumors. When tumors do not respond to chemotherapy or radiation, or those are not viable options, people often look for alternative forms of treatment. A recent article in Healthline reveals encouraging treatment therapy that may help to destroy dangerous cancer cells. Professionals from the Burzynski Clinic weigh in on these new developments.

Oh, goody. Burzynski’s going to weigh in on someone else’s work. I can’t wait. It’s rather like me commenting on art history. Actually, it’s worse than that, because I do have a modicum of knowledge about art history. It’s a tiny bit of knowledge, but I guarantee you that the quality and breadth of my knowledge about art history likely exceeds the quality and breadth of Stanislaw Burzynski’s understanding of cancer. That is, of course, not saying much, but it should give you an idea of the amusement that watching Burzynski comment on new science should provide. True, it probably won’t be as hilariously off-base as the time Burzynski, in his arrogance of ignorance, proclaimed himself a pioneer in personalized cancer therapy so awesome that M.D. Anderson follows his lead, but it should be amusing.

In any case, this appears to be the story that prompted Burzynski to comment, and this is the study that prompted the news story. It’s an interesting concept, a new class of drugs targeting tropomyosin, a core component of actin filaments. (Actin filaments make up the cytoskeleton of cells.) If the tumor cytoskeleton is impaired, then tumor cell motility can be affected. Indeed, that’s the mechanism by which taxol and taxanes work; they target another component of the cytoskeleton, tubulin. This blocks cell cycle progression and prevents mitosis. Similar results, apparently, are observed with TR100 due to its ability to selectively act on the tropomyosin in tumor cells, which sounds promising. In particular, what looked especially good is that there didn’t appear to be any cardiac toxicity, which is always a worry for a drug that inhibits tropomyosin.

All of which is basically what Burzynski says, but he appears to have basically cribbed his statements from press releases on the drug, particularly the part at the end, where it states:

Professionals at the Burzynski Clinic are keeping their eye on these promising developments, but have some reservations.

And:

The Burzynski Clinic is interested to see the results of future clinical trials.

Well, duh. You could say that about virtually any new class of drugs. Only the specific reservations would vary.

This press release, as inane and uninformative as it was (not to mention utterly pointless), made me wonder what Burzynski’s been up to. Idly, I clicked on the link to the Burzynski Clinic in the press release and immediately noticed that it was a different site than the original Burzynski Clinic site. The old site is the same old Burzynski site we’ve all come to know and despise. It’s fairly slick and well-designed. The new site is pretty bare bones and proclaims:

What makes this clinic so different?

This clinic stands out from others because its staff attempts to directly treat the genes that are being overexpressed and that are associated with certain difficult forms of cancer. In addition, this treatment center provides patients with numerous treatment options.

How does this clinic treat cancer?

Every form of cancer is essentially caused by a combination of abnormal genes. Because this combination will ultimately determine the progression of the disease, it is best to attack cancer at the source. The specialists at Burzynski Clinic will design a personalized treatment regime for each patient, taking into consideration the effect that genes have on the overall outcome.

All of this is standard, post-antineoplaston Burzynski nonsense. As I’ve explained many times before, what he does resembles cutting edge personalized gene therapy only in that he uses targeted agents. He does it so poorly that I call Burzynski’s version of it “personalized gene-targeted cancer therapy for dummies.”

What’s deceptive about the website (and quite typical of Burzynski) is the the choice of testimonials to “prove” how awesome Burzynski is. Some of the names are familiar, such as Tori Moreno, who was treated with antineoplastons, Burzynski’s peptides that he isolated from blood and urine so long ago and proclaimed to be the be-all and end-all of treatment for advanced malignancies. She wasn’t treated with Burzynski’s personalized gene therapy concoctions at all. Ditto Elizabeth Mora and Mary K. Brittain, who was also treated with antineoplastons, and Carol Bricker and Tracy Edry, who were both treated with Aminocare (antineoplastons) and pheynylbutyrate, which is also, in essence, antineoplastons. Most of these patients used for testimonials for Burzynski weren’t treated with his witches’ brew of targeted therapies based on his “personalized gene-targeted therapy.” Of course, all that Burzynski has left is his “personalized” therapy because the FDA put a partial clinical hold on antineoplastons back in the summer of 2012 for pediatric patients, a hold that was extended to adults early this year. Burzynski can’t enroll new cancer patients in his bogus antineoplaston clinical trials, although he can keep treating the patients he already has.

Something appears to be going on. I’m not sure what, but something’s definitely going on. I notice that the Burzynski Patients Fight Back site has been redesigned so as to be less obnoxious from a design standpoint, although it is every bit as silly from a content standpoint. Meanwhile, the @BurzynskiSaves Twitter feed has been reborn as @BurzynskiSaves1.

As the old song goes: There’s something happening here; what it is ain’t exactly clear.

I too noticed the new Burzynski Clinic website last week and was confident that Orac would shine some insolence on it.

What stood out for me is that it seems like a homemade site, based on a WordPress-style template, that includes a Google Adserver panel down the right side that offers up ads for other alternative crap like Essiac and body detoxing. There’s also a Disqus comments section. No comments so far. It’ll be interesting to see if any negative comments are moderated or deleted. Maybe someone here should test the waters?

But probably the most striking thing is that there isn’t a single photo of Slimy Stan, his clinic, the exterior of the building, etc. The only photos are stock shots of distinguised-looking movie-star handsome doctors in white lab coats and stethoscopes talking to eqaully-handsome, smiling, happy “patients.”

Other than the testimonials Orac mentions, there are no links to any of the “scientific” documents on the original website, no links to the movie site, not links to the BPG, nothing.

The original site is still up. One has to wonder if this new site (which is .org, interestingly enough, usually reserved for non-profits and public service sites) is intended to replace that original site eventually.

I also noticed there is no contact information anywhere on the new site, not even an address or phone number. There is no way to e-mail the clinic from the new site either. This is indeed very very strange.

Pay attention to the first line of this paragraph from the new site. It’s almost as if someone is trying to say “despite all the bad press you might have read, the FDA trouble and the fact we can’t use ANPs anymore, we are still open for business so c’mon down and bring your chequebook…”

Over the last few years, Burzynski Clinic has remained fully operational and very busy treating patients from all over the world with a variety of difficult cancers. If you are currently planning on coming to this unique and amazing medical facility to receive cutting-edge therapies, you have made the right decision! Although it is perfectly natural to feel anxious about coming in for treatment, you can rest assured that the caring, knowledgeable staff at this clinic are prepared to handle any of your needs…

I’ve been hoping for a Burzynski article to announce this:Daughter-in-law seems to have survived Gliobastoma Multiforme!
=================================
In Previous Episodes: About 16 months ago, DIL was diagnosed with GBM. She lived in Tacoma, WA at the time. Our son died of diabetic kidney failure, etc, 12 yrs ago, so he wasn’t available.
Her initial treatment, radiation augmented with a chemo agent, started right after the biopsy, at some major hospital in the SeaTac area (UW?). They then returned to DIL’s biological family’s home in San Diego County for followup chemo and a little more radiation therapy at Scripps (where DIL’s sister works).
(Our info has come from DIL, sometimes through GrandDaughter, to my wife, then to me and then you — this telephone game leads to incompleteness and potential inaccuracies, despite Wife being a retired nurse.)
Previous report was that DIL’s oncologist had said, ca June, “You’re going to be a longterm patient.”
——————————-
Last week, DIL suffered a fall, hit her head, and was hospitalized for observation. That was the opportunity for yet another MRI and further testing. The result of all that was announced as “Cancer Free.”
We all know that such a pronouncement is provisional, but it’s still great.
Naturally, she has damage from the GBM and the treatment: speech, balance, and motor problems. (That should pin down the location for the medical pros around.) Rehab starts right away. DIL’s goal is to be able to return to work, if speech and motor therapy allows. First thing is to move out of sister’s spare room… .
————————————————————
What’s the Burzynski angle? DIL wasn’t about to fall for Stan-baby’s nonsense, the Burzynski worshippers’ claims that GBM is only survivable using ANPs.
—————————————————

I wonder if the new site is actually set up and operated by Burypatients? It’s on a different host and with a different registrant – with anonymity for the actual owner – and the domain name was bought only three weeks ago.
I’m wondering if it’s actually the work of some click-farmer, entirely unconnected with the clinic, who discovered that burzynskiclinic.net was unclaimed, and decided to take advantage.

I agree, sophia8. The .net web site is so at odds with the .com, including no clear way to contact the clinic and no glowingly padded CV for Stan. Also some of the pages have comment sections at the bottom where anyone can leave a comment.

Idly, I clicked on the link to the Burzynski Clinic in the press release and immediately noticed that it was a different site than the original Burzynski Clinic site.

Given the weirdness of the .net site other posters have noted above, I have to ask: how do we know that this is Burzynski himself, rather than a click-farmer who is spoofing Burzynski? While I agree that Dr. B would have “reservations” about anybody else’s cancer treatment techniques, the description in the press release of this technique being “promising” seems out of character.

On another message board, I had the misfortune of dealing with a particularly odious fellow who caused no end of difficulties for the site. Eventually, we were able to drive him off, but it took a lot of effort. Later, I learned he had lost his job as a security guard and had become a click farmer in order to support his increasingly vitriolic anti-semitic screeds on the Internet. He eventually dropped off of the Internet altogether, and I wonder if he got committed to an institution or died or what.

Given the “quality” (and I use that term loosely) of this site, I’d suspect click farming.

Not if I got to it first, Bobio.
I find it interesting that the “new” patients fight back site was altered just a couple of days after the .net clinic page, both to wordpress formats. Correlation/causation etc. YMMV.

I can’t add anythingof value to the Great Website Mystery, but this is amusing:

I work at a comprehensive cancer center and when clicking BOTH the old and new links in the post from my work computer, I’m met with a security message: “Access to this website is blocked: potentially dangerous material.” It knows.

it gave me great satisfaction to alert The Guardian about DJT, who I knew would be posting there once the “Myths” story hit Twitter. (He simply can’t resist posting his inane comments anywhere Stan is written about.)

I told The Guardian about his back story, having being banned from all science blogs around the world, Wiki, Reddit, suspended from almost 20 Twitter accounts, etc. and that he was a paid shill and/or an employee of Burzynski.

Within 20 minutes his comment was scrubbed from The Guardian site which started him off on another week-long tirade about censorship and freedom of speech.

Of the over 400 comments that were posted, only two were deleted: one from DJT and one from someone else caught shilling.

Actually, Sheila Herron had modified her “Fighting Back” site even earlier; after it was first ridiculed here and all over Twitter. That second version stayed up for a week or so, and then the third (and current) version went up a few days ago.

She keeps threatening to “expose” the skeptics, and yet the most active Burzynksi critics around the world use their own real names, so what is there to “expose”?

I notice she’s using links to various psychic and paranormal websites to explain what a “skeptic” is.

WF: Yes, she is particularly enamoured with the Bolen stuff, alerted to that from @ZimJay. I’m not sure if she’s figured out yet that I now live about 40 miles away from her.

While I realise that the fight back site has been up for a while, I am curious when it moved to wordpress, as it seems to have been done at the same time as the clinic .net site was created, also in wordpress.

Coincidentally (or maybe not) around the same time as all this new activity on Count Stan started last week, Eric Merola posted this on his Facebook page, which has been unusually quiet the past several weeks:

I just want to ask a random question – what do you think will happen when the Japanese Randomized Clinical trials of Antineoplastons (ANP), showing double the survival rate in the ANP group – hit peer-review publication?

Do you think the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society will update their materials documenting that randomized studies are complete, peer-reviewed, and published? Do you think the paid Astroturf campaign who own the Wikipedia page will allow Wiki to be updated? Do you think those same people will boycott the medical journal who publishes it? Will oncologists, after reading the peer-reviewed randomized study finally accept it as the proven therapy it is? Will the FDA allow ANP to enter the so-called “free market” – finally?

My local newpsaper in Montreal ran a homeopathy-debunking article last week written by a prominent McGill chemistry professor (and someone who has been very active publically for many years here fighting woo and debunking all manner of pseudoscience.)

All the usual homeo-promoters flocked to the comments for equal time, and several quoted Bolen, Natural News and whale.to to try to discredit the skeptics who were also posting comments. A veritable Holy Trinity of crackpottery! So I smile when I see @ZimJay and the Burzynski fans latch onto Bolen too. Since we’re homoskeptical pedophiles,don’t ‘cha know.

Has anyone tried to past a comment on the new Burzynski Clinic website to see what happens? Particularly something questioning Burzynski, or asking for some evidence that the claims on the site are true? Or even simply asking how much the treatment costs?

I suppose “hosted” might have been going too far. Anyway, the same box also used to serve cfrederickwehba.net and syschlagersite.com, both defunct. One that is live, though, is richgormanbio.com. Not exactly the same league as the former two, eh?

In other cancer related news, I’m probably not posting anything that Orac isn’t already aware of, but Dr Daniel Kopans, who has previously featured on this blog, is back has had another intervention into the Mammography debate:

burzynskiclinic.org would be an excellent repository for all the links leading to the stories about Stan on ScienceBlogs, TOBPG, and the many, many excellent and informative posts from Josephine Jones, Guy Chapman, Rhys Morgan, Andy Lewis, Peter Bowditch, Beatis, etc.

Thr link works for me but only if I do “direct.” If I click on the link from the news release Orac mentions it seems to be dead. The URL is identical so I don’t understand why one works and the other doesn’t.

Internet is a legitimate UK web hosting company. At least I hope they are legitimate as I have a couple of websites hosted on their servers!

I thought 1&1 was actually Schlund. In any event, I wasn’t commenting on them. They have had a reputation in the past of getting too big too fast and not expanding their abuse department commensurately, but whatever. Just offhand, at the moment, their MX 74.208.4.194 is listed in SORBS.

I put my brain cells in jeopardy to check out iDJiT’s blathering. Stripped of the word salad, it’s a response to Woo Fighter’s comment at 21, where he says that he (WF) notified the Guardian of iDJiT being persona non grata status just about everywhere and a paid shill for Burzynski.

iDJiT’s contention is that he is not a paid shill for Burzynski and besides there’s also some places where his spamming hasn’t gotten him banned yet; ergo WF’s statements to the Guardian were lies.

In My Humble Analysis, the issues pretty much break down to two: his banned status, and whether he’s a paid shill for Burzynski or not.

As regards the former, I think the doctrine of “substantial truth” probably applies, morally if not legally. The fact is that iDJiT’s abusive spamming has gotten him banned from multiple blogs; getting the exact number wrong doesn’t really rise to the level of “lie”.

As regards the latter, if iDJiT isn’t Burzynski’s representative, what is he doing setting up a WordPress blog under Burzynski’s name?? We’re supposed to believe that the same Burzynski who employed the infamous Mark Stephens is looking the other way while someone who isn’t his representative operates stanislawrajmundburzynski.wordpress.com?

In any case, what iDJiT seems not to realize (besides how much of a freaking loony he looks) that the Guardian is very, very unlikely to ban one commenter based solely on another’s say-so. Woo Fighter may have alerted them to iDJiT’s history, but without a doubt, iDJiT’s ban was due to his own self.

You say absolutely nothing about why you would believe whoever and whatever it is you believe, and that’s the part that’s of interest to intelligent adults.

Here’s a couple of hypothetical scenarios:

You tell us that you believe Stanislaw Burzynski, and disbelieve Orac’s criticism, because Burzynski has finally completed a clinical trial and the results actually do show effectiveness. In such a scenario, we’d all be very interested to find out the details of this completed clinical trial and see whether it’s as solid and convincing as you think it is.

You tell us that you believe Burzynski because you’ve heard lots of amazing anecdotes about him. Guess what. Every cancer scammer ever has had lots of anecdotes. Some of them even had anecdotes that were true. They just weren’t the whole of the story. Wake us up when you’ve got a reason that’s more substantial.

You tell us that you believe Burzynski because the Ouija board told you he was trustworthy. Why on Earth would you even expect anyone to care that you chose to believe Burzynski on such a stupid basis? And yet, we have absolutely no reason to think you have a better basis for your belief in Burzynski.